Boruto Uzumaki

Background

Kishimoto created Boruto in 2013, as Naruto neared its climax, because he wanted Naruto to be a father by the end of the manga. In the finale the boy pulls a prank on the Hokage faces carved into Konoha's mountain. Kishimoto wanted him to behave like his father while still differing from him, and described him as less direct than Naruto; his first name honours Neji Hyuga, who died protecting both of Boruto's parents.

In the 2015 film Boruto: Naruto the Movie he trains to surpass his father, the leader of Konohagakure, and is mentored by Naruto's best friend and former rival Sasuke Uchiha, a pairing Kishimoto modelled on Piccolo teaching Gohan in Dragon Ball. The father-and-son story grew out of Kishimoto's relationship with his own sons, and the film's theme song, "Diver" by Kana-Boon, was written with Boruto in mind. The scene in which Naruto gives his son all his chakra to enlarge his Rasengan was carefully storyboarded.

As protagonist of the manga and anime Boruto: Naruto Next Generations and its sequel Boruto: Two Blue Vortex, he fights the Ōtsutsuki celestials so often that he becomes genetically an Ōtsutsuki himself, earning the nickname Boruto Ōtsutsuki. The manga centres on his relationship with his adoptive brother Kawaki, and its first chapter opens with a flashforward of the two as teenagers fighting over a ruined Konoha. Artist Mikio Ikemoto drew on Neo from The Matrix for Boruto's potential as a saviour, and the teenage Boruto wears clothes borrowed from Sasuke as a mark of respect. Kokoro Kikuchi voiced him in The Last: Naruto the Movie, Yūko Sanpei in everything since, and Amanda C. Miller in English.